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His dory was beached alongside the pier where the Charming Lass had lain for the past week. Now, as he approached it, he suddenly stopped, rooted in his tracks. The Charming Lass was gone. "All dories aboard? All hands set tops'ls! Jimmie Thomas, ease your mainsheet! Now, boys, altogether! Yo! Sway 'em flat! Yo! Once more! Yo! Fine! Stand by to set balloon jib!"
To swing her clear of both by going to leeward he must bring the mainsail and boom-foresail over with a tremendous shock, but that seemed preferable, and with his heart in his mouth he pulled his helm up. He fancied he cried out in warning, but was never sure of it, though three men came running to seize the mainsheet.
We therefore filled our topsail and, a few minutes later, tacked, again getting a broadside from the sinking ship, when we stationed ourselves square athwart her bows where we were pretty well out of the way of her fire and, with topsail aback and mainsheet eased off, waited patiently for the final moment, which we saw was rapidly approaching.
With clenched teeth sat the boat-steerer, grasping the steering oar firmly with both hands, his restless eyes on the alert a glance at the schooner ahead, as we rose on a sea, another at the mainsheet, and then one astern where the dark ripple of the wind on the water told him of a coming puff or a large white-cap that threatened to overwhelm us.
This, as Wyllard recognised, was necessary, though he would sooner have had somebody by him, and the rest of them ready to let the mainsheet run, for he was a little to windward of the opening, and surmised that he would have to run the schooner down upon the boat. It was a few moments later when he saw her emerge from among the ice, and the men in her appeared to be pulling strenuously.
At noon, just after dinner, a few cat's-paws curdled the milky-blue whiteness of the glassy surface, and the water once more began to talk beneath the bow-sprit. It was very hot. The sun spun silently like a spinning brass discus over the mainmast. On the fo'c'sle head the Chinamen were asleep or smoking opium. It was Charlie's watch. Kitchell dozed in his hammock in the shadow of the mainsheet.
His brain clearing, the temperature of his judgment quickly regained its mean, and he saw his chances without distortion, weighed them without exaggeration. Leaning against the combing, feet braced upon the slippery and treacherous deck, he clung to tiller and mainsheet and peered ahead with anxious eyes, a pucker of daring graven deep between his brows.
By the time you've disentangled her twice from the mainsheet, with the Major swearing all the time, and been obliged to haul her up to windward whenever the boat goes about and she gets left with her head down on the lee side, you get to feel as if you'd known her intimately for years. By the way, what time do you lunch?" "Half-past one," said Simpkins. "Will you "
He, too, in the puffs, climbed part way out on the outrigger, at the same time steering with both hands on a large paddle and holding the mainsheet with his foot. "Ready about!" he called. I carefully shifted my weight inboard in order to maintain the equilibrium as the sail emptied. "Hard a-lee!" he called, shooting her into the wind.
This necessitated frequent tacks, so that, overhead, the mainsail was ever swooping across from port tack to starboard tack and back again, making air-noises like the swish of wings, sharply rat-tat-tatting its reef points and loudly crashing its mainsheet gear along the traveller.
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